[Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

Mon Jul 31 04:33:37 UTC 2006

Lars Aronsson wrote:

>Michael R. Irwin wrote:
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>>Oldak Quill wrote:
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>>>So if Wikimedia and its assets were taken down in the US, those 
>>>in other countries could quickly replace them?
>>>      
>>>
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>>Once the WMF or new equivalent in U.S. was back up and running 
>>they could rehire the technical and administrative staff and 
>>reestablish
>>    
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>
>Please, this starts to sound like a cult drifting off into "if we 
>have a fortress, they can never get us", ending up like those in 
>Waco, Texas. (The 1993 events described as [[en:Waco Siege]].)
>
>What exactly are you trying to achieve?  
>
I am trying to achieve reliable future access to the WMF data for anyone 
who wishes to establish a future fork to take up where WMF leaves off 
should a calamity befall the WMF.

>If you want immunity 
>against legal threats in the western world (and for what outlaw 
>purpose would you want this?), you probably have to relocate to 
>North Korea, Syria or Zimbabwe.
>  
>
Personally I do not think we need or want immunity, nor do I think it is 
possible.   In my view compliance is reasonable and required.  

I do think making damn sure that the millions of manhours of donated 
effort spent developing the Wikimedia project data can not be partially 
or totally wasted by the simple expedient of purchasing all media and 
data rights of the WMF from a liquidation authority for a few thousand 
dollars and then filing nuisance lawsuits against anyone posting or 
publishing online the entire dataset from backups.

If you do not like the above scenario make up your own and consider how 
to defuse it.  

The datasets the WMF supports online are just now getting to the point 
of potentially depressing sales of millions and then hundreds of 
millions and then billions of dollars of published materials in the 
U.S.A annually.    The publishing industry in the U.S. is not going to 
roll over and modernize any easier than the record labels, Disney, 
U.S.Government; and the other DRM proponents did.  They can buy access 
to the U.S. Congress just as easy as anyone else.

Nor is it unlikely that the U.S. government might like a return to more 
easily controlled media focal points.    I do not know if you have 
noticed; but as official policy, both foreign and domestic, the U.S. now 
employs torture, has secret courts (an oxy moron), and has an executive 
branch which does not even meet its responsibility under federal law to 
tell a secret court within 3 days why it backdated the ability for 
secret police raids, searches, wiretaps, etc.   This is a substantial 
departure from the typical U.S. citizen's mental image of the "land of 
the free".

Some people claim this is standard practice while at War while others 
claim this is a substantial departure from U.S. policy, laws, and 
expectations.   The one thing that is clear is that the "War on Terror" 
is likely to be finished when the office of the U.S. president (POTUS) 
says it is finished.   It is not prudent to be relying exclusively on 
the Constitution of the United States for the ability to publicly 
publish useful information potentially detrimental to large business or 
government interests in the U.S.

If this is a nonissue because duplicate dataset updates are routinely 
sent to various chapters that have agreed to serve as out of U.S. 
control zones backups and reestablish internet access within six months 
of WMF shutdown; then maybe someone can say so publicly and we can leave 
all risk management issues and elimination of single points of failure 
to the God King and his designated Trustees and staff.

BTW,  is a completed audit on the WMF's first few years of operation 
posted somewhere online where interested parties such as myself can 
review it?

If it is not posted, but available upon request, then I would like to 
request copies or be placed upon the distribution list so I get copies 
when they become available.

later,
lazyquasar